Emily Barker hails from a tiny rural backwater in the remote south west of Western Australia. Set among majestic jarrah forests, surrounded by timber towns and cattle farms, Emily's close-knit family has long been part of Bridgetown's vibrant mix of mill workers, farmers, artists and escapees from the big smoke. "As a young child my mother used to sit the 4 of us kids in a circle" says Barker. "She'd play her nylon string guitar and give us each a part to do and we'd sing 4-part harmonies to old traditional tunes and church songs. ...show more

Emily Barker hails from a tiny rural backwater in the remote south west of Western Australia. Set among majestic jarrah forests, surrounded by timber towns and cattle farms, Emily's close-knit family has long been part of Bridgetown's vibrant mix of mill workers, farmers, artists and escapees from the big smoke. "As a young child my mother used to sit the 4 of us kids in a circle" says Barker. "She'd play her nylon string guitar and give us each a part to do and we'd sing 4-part harmonies to old traditional tunes and church songs.

And my father had a very extensive LP collection that became the soundtrack to my childhood. He loves folk, country and blues music, artists such as Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Rikki-Lee Jones, Sandy Denny and Steeleye Span. I just soaked 'em all up, but it was Neil Young that seeped into my soul the most, and he's still my biggest musical hero". At 19, Emily donned a backpack and head out to travel the world, she visited and lived in numerous countries collecting stories and inspiration for songs as she went, but her travels slowed down somewhat when landing in the UK.

In 2002 Emily found herself in Cambridge where she used to perform regularly at various singer-songwriter nights. It was at one of these nights that Emily first met local guitar extraordinaire Rob Jackson (Boo Hewerdine/Broken Family Band/Eddie Reader.) They teamed up for a few songs at The Cambridge Folk Festival that year and went down a storm. Off the back of this success, they formed a band called 'the-low-country' who went on to release 2 albums ('Welcome to the-low-country...' and 'The Dark Road'), played numerous alt-country venues and festivals, and enjoyed several plays on John Peel's show. In October 2005, Emily won both Country song of the year and Regional song of the year at the prestigious Annual West Australian Music Song writing Awards. ...show less